Bobert

flywheel gland nut was 275 ft pounds

I had a Chrysler truck running tests at Flagstaff AZ that ran into a tree stump and broke off a suspension arm. The factory airlifted¹ a replacement part, but they sent the suspension arm and the ball joint as unassembled parts. The ball had a "self-tapping" thread on it, about 3 7/8 inch diameter, and the hard-tempered Al arm was a smooth bore.

We put the arm in a reallybig vise at the Ordnance Depot railroad maintenance shop, put a twelve foot "cheater" on a wrench (for 4 7/8" hex nut) that the shop had. Put four pretty husky guys on the wrench end, and still skidded the 18 foot long (railroad tie top) bench a few feet with the other two guys tryin' to hold it down.

Back at home base I asked the factory rep (who was unavailable for the installation) what kind of torque they used at the factory, and he called the factory for us. Their answer was "we don't really know 'cause we've got this hulkin' big hydraulic thingamajobby that puts 'em in; but we'd guess about 3700 ftLb." (I think they missed by about a 2x factor. I'd already made my estimate that we used something a little over 4800 ftLb. It "looked seated" but wasn't really all the way in at that.)

Since they sent both parts, it occured to me that they could have used their "hulkin' big hydraulic thingamajobby" to put them together before they sent them to us like they did before they sent them to the install line at the factory; but apparently they never had that idea.

¹ "airlifted" is a euphemism. They sent the parts from Yuma in an L19 (max rated operational altitude 8,000 ft.) Flagstaff field, 8,300 ft.

I didn't see him come in, but the pilot had brown pants when we met him in the coffee shop. When he left (empty), he used all of the runway, cleared the 3 foot fence at the end, and went DOWN out of sight tryin' to pick up flying speed. Fortunately the ground went down in that direction too - all the way back to Yuma.

(Idiot Lack of support wasn't the only reason that truck didn't get my recommendation for Army Standard deployment. I think the three prototypes were the only ones built.)

John